The Rediff Special/ B Raman

At the time of recording this tentative assessment
(2 pm, Indian Standard Time, May 8, 2002), the only details available about an explosion at Karachi this morning are as follows: Twelve persons -- nine of them French and the remaining, Pakistani -- were killed when an explosion destroyed a bus belonging to the Pakistani Navy outside the Sheraton Hotel. Twenty-five others were injured, many of them French. All of them were working in a production facility of the Pakistan Navy near Karachi, where the French company producing the Agosta class submarines was assembling a submarine out of parts imported from France and training Pakistani Navy personnel in the assembly and ultimate indigenous production of submarines using the technology bought by Pakistan from the French company. The bus was, as usual, to transport the French personnel to the work site. According to the Karachi police, the explosion would appear to have been caused by a suicide bomber sitting inside a car. No organisation has claimed responsibility.

The contract with the French for the purchase, assembly and ultimate production of the submarines was initiated during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure as prime minister (1993-97). Since then, it has been enveloped in controversy regarding the alleged payment of bribes by the French to her husband, Asif Zirdari, senior naval officers and General Pervez Musharraf's US-based brother, who allegedly acted as one of the middlemen.

For years, there have been serious allegations in Pakistan that, apart from heroin money, bribes from foreign arms traders were a major source of illegitimate income for Pakistan's senior military officers. The maximum number of such allegations have been against French and Ukrainian arms manufacturers/traders.

When Musharraf started his so-called accountability process against Nawaz Sharif, Benazir and other Pakistani leaders after he captured power on October 12, 1999, he came under strong criticism for directing his enquiries only against his political opponents. He was chastised for not taking action against senior military officers, who, it was contended, were as corrupt as the political leaders, if not more. He, therefore, made a pretense of acting against some senior naval officers, but let them free after they agreed to surrender the bribes taken by them to the government.

The allegations against senior military officers did not subside and, before his recent visit to the US in February, 2002, the allegations against his US-based brother resurfaced. It was also alleged that Musharraf and his wife had acquired a house in the US with the money paid by the French to his brother.

It is difficult to accept at this stage that these allegations of bribery of senior military officers by the French might have played any role in the Karachi explosion. The Karachi police claim it was a suicide bomber who killed the French. If this is so, it has to be underlined that the Pakistan/Afghanistan-based jehadi organisations generally undertake suicide missions, as they have done 43 times in Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of India, only for religious reasons. They do not do it for non-religious reasons such as bribery.

The French government is a member of the US-led international coalition against terrorism, but its role in Afghanistan has been minimal. Moreover, the criticism in Pakistan's pro-Osama bin Laden religious press has been mainly against the US, Israel and India. There is hardly any criticism of the other members for their role against bin Laden. Surprisingly, there has been no criticism of even the British, not to talk of the French, by the jehadi organisations allied with bin Laden.

So far, these organisations have not given any inkling of any anger against the French for religious reasons. If at all this blast had a religious motive, a possible reason could have been the perceived French co-operation with the USA in the investigation of Richard Reid's Pakistani links (Reid was the so-called shoe bomber who started his fateful journey to the USA from Paris). The French counter-terrorism agencies have also been very active in investigating the links of the Al Qaeda in France, and their bank accounts, and in having them frozen.

While the Karachi police have been saying the explosion was directed at the French, one should not rule out the possibility that the explosion was directed in general at the Sheraton Hotel where many foreigners, including Americans, stay and that the Pakistani naval bus carrying the French bore the brunt of the blast as it was parked near the explosive-laden car.

If the explosion was directed specifically at the bus, it assumes not only an anti-French, but also the anti-military motive of disrupting the functioning of the submarine production facility. Of the various terrorist organisations based in Pakistan, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami have, in the past, targetted foreigners in Pakistan as well as in J&K, but they generally do not indulge in suicide bombing.

The Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba indulge in suicide bombing, but they avoid hitting at the interests of the Pakistan military-intelligence establishment, to which they are beholden. The kidnappers of journalist Daniel Pearl -- he worked for the US-based newspaper, the Wall Street Journal -- were pro-military and, as one of their conditions for Pearl's release, demanded the US release the impounded F-16 aircraft ordered by Pakistan in the late 1980s.

The LeT, which is headquartered at Muridke, near Lahore, has not shown a capability for spectacular terrorist operations in Karachi in the past; while the Jaish, which has its headquarters in Karachi's Binori madrasa, and the HUM and the HUJI have a demonstrated capability for operations in Karachi.

Another organisation which could come under focus is Al-Saiqa, which has an anti-military, anti-foreigner stand. It gained the limelight for the first time in January this year, when it attacked a patrol of the Frontier Constabulary in the North-West Frontier province, but has been dormant thereafter. Its pamphlets have been virulently anti-military, but it has demonstrated no capability for operations in Karachi.

B Raman, additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat, government of India, is presently director, Institute For Topical Studies.